The scent of antiseptic and old wood clung to the air in Nash’s cabin, a strangely comforting combination. The fire had burned down to a bed of glowing embers, casting a warm, flickering light that danced across the rugged lines of his face.
He’d just finished tending to the gash on my arm, his touch surprisingly gentle for a man whose hands were calloused from a life of hard work and harder fights.
The silence that settled between us wasn’t empty; it was heavy with the confession that still hung in the space he’d carved out for it.
I loved her, Callie. My biggest regret is not getting her in my truck and driving until this town was just a bad memory.
His grief was a living thing in the room, a raw, exposed nerve. And in seeing it, the last vestiges of fear I’d held for him dissolved, replaced by a profound and aching empathy.
The darkness in Nash Devereaux wasn’t the monster; it was the shadow cast by a devastating loss.
I shifted on the worn leather couch, the movement pulling at the stitches in my side. I winced, and his head snapped up, his gaze instantly sharp with concern. “You should rest.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, my voice a little rough. “We were close. Before… before everything happened tonight. I feel it, Nash. The answer is in here.”
I gestured to Hannah’s journal, which lay open on the low-slung coffee table between us.
He watched me for a long moment, his expression unreadable in the dim light. Then he gave a slow, deliberate nod, dragging his armchair closer until our knees were almost touching.
The space between us crackled with a new kind of energy.
It wasn’t just two people hunting for a killer anymore. It was two souls bound by the same ghost, seeking the same absolution.
“Alright,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through me. “Let’s look again.”
We leaned over the journal together.
The heat from his body was a tangible presence, seeping into my side, a stark contrast to the cold dread that had been my constant companion. I could smell the faint scent of whiskey on his breath, mixed with soap and the pine from outside.
His focus was absolute as his finger traced the lines of Hannah’s elegant, looping script. My eyes followed his, our heads bent so close I could feel the whisper of his breath against my hair when he spoke.
“We’ve read this a hundred times,” he murmured, his frustration a rough edge on the words. “It’s all here—her fears about her father, the pressure from the Devereaux family, her dreams of leaving.”
“But it’s what’s not here,” I countered, my own finger landing on a page near the end.
“Look at the dates. She wrote every single day, religiously. Then there’s a gap of three days before her last entry. And this last one…”
We both stared at the final page. It was different from the others.
Her usually neat handwriting was frantic, scrawled across the paper. And in the margins, there were odd notations. A series of numbers, separated by periods.
`114.8.3`, `72.19.1`, `256.2.11`.
“I thought it was just random doodling,” Nash said, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Nerves.”
“No,” I said, a flicker of excitement cutting through my exhaustion. “It’s not random. Look at the pattern. Three numbers, period, three numbers, period. It’s a sequence. It’s a code.”
His eyes met mine over the book, and for the first time, I saw a spark of something other than pain in their depths. It was hope. Fierce and dangerous. “A code for what?”
My mind raced. A code needs a key.
Something personal, something only she would know. I thought back to everything I knew about Hannah, everything Nash had told me. Her love of classic literature, of tragic heroines…
“Her books,” I breathed. “Nash, what was her favorite book? The one she was always reading?”
He didn’t even have to think. A sad smile touched his lips.
“Wuthering Heights. She said she was Catherine and I was her Heathcliff. A mess of a love story destined for tragedy.” The words were laced with a bitterness that broke my heart.
“Get it,” I urged, my own heart starting to hammer against my ribs.
He moved to the small, dusty bookshelf in the corner and pulled out a battered paperback. The spine was cracked, the cover soft with wear.
He handed it to me, and my fingers trembled as I took it. It felt like holding a sacred object.
“Page, line, word,” I whispered, looking back at the first set of numbers. `114.8.3`.
Nash leaned in again, his arm brushing mine, sending a jolt of pure electricity through my system. I ignored it, forcing my focus onto the task. I flipped to page 114.
Together, we counted down eight lines.
“‘My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath…’” Nash read aloud, his voice thick with emotion. I counted the words. One, two, three.
“Beneath,” I said, scribbling it on a notepad I’d found on the table.
We worked in a feverish, silent rhythm after that. My fingers flying through the pages of the worn novel, Nash’s deep voice a steady anchor as he read the lines, his presence a solid wall at my side.
The world outside the cabin dissolved. There was only the crackle of the embers, the rustle of turning pages, and the low murmur of our voices untangling a ghost’s last words.
`72.19.1` took us to page 72. “He is more myself than I am.” The first word was He.
`256.2.11` was on page 256. “…a source of little visible delight, but necessary.” The eleventh word was necessary.
Beneath. He. Necessary. It made no sense.
“We’re missing something,” Nash growled, scrubbing a hand over his face. The hope in his eyes was starting to dim.
“Wait,” I said, staring at the journal again.
The numbers were in the margin, but next to them were small, almost imperceptible symbols. A small D next to the first set. An S.H. next to the second.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing.
Nash squinted. “Initials. Devereaux. My father.” His voice was flat. “And S.H.”
He went still, his whole body tensing beside me. He stared at the letters as if they’d physically struck him.
“Nash? Who is S.H.?”
He didn’t answer. He just pointed back to the book. “Keep going. The ones marked with D.”
My hands were shaking now, a sense of impending disaster washing over me. We decoded the rest of the numbers marked with a D.
`Devereaux. Saw. Me. Knows. Everything. Promised. Silence.`
The words lay stark and brutal on the notepad. I felt the air leave my lungs in a ragged gasp. “He knew she had the evidence. He saw her with it and threatened her.”
Nash’s jaw was a granite ridge. “And my father was a man who kept his promises.” He exhaled slowly, the sound like gravel scraping stone. “Now do the others. The S.H. ones.”
A cold, creeping dread snaked its way up my spine. My fingers felt numb as I turned the pages. The words we uncovered were even more chilling.
`Sheriff. Hayes. Buried. Investigation. For. Him.`
I stared at the name, my blood turning to ice in my veins. Sheriff Hayes.
Ben’s father.
The room tilted.
Suddenly, the air was too thin to breathe.
Ben. The man who held my hand and promised to protect me.
The man whose father was a bedrock of this town’s history, a legend in local law enforcement. The man who was a Hayes, through and through.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head, refusing to believe it. “It can’t be. There must be a mistake.”
“There’s no mistake,” Nash said, his voice deadly quiet. He stood up and began to pace the small space in front of the hearth, his movements caged and violent.
“It all makes sense now. The lost evidence. The ‘inconclusive’ autopsy report that was rushed through. The way every lead went cold overnight. I screamed at him, you know. I went to his office and I told him he was letting the Devereauxs get away with murder. He looked me right in the eye and told me grief was making me crazy.”
He stopped and looked at me, his eyes blazing with a decade of suppressed fury.
“He wasn’t just incompetent. He wasn’t just lazy. He was complicit. Sheriff Hayes helped my father cover up Hannah’s murder.”
My hand flew to my mouth, a wave of nausea rolling through me. Every interaction I’d had with Ben flashed through my mind, now cast in a sinister new light.
His constant warnings to be careful, to let him handle it. His defensiveness whenever I pushed too hard.
His insistence that the past should stay buried. Was he protecting me from the Devereauxs, or was he protecting his family’s legacy?
Protecting a secret that would shatter the very foundation of this town and his own life?
The trust I had so carefully placed in him, the burgeoning hope for something real and safe, crumbled into dust.
It was a lie. All of it.
His father wasn’t a hero; he was an accomplice. And Ben… Ben was his son. The current sheriff, holding the keys to the same kingdom, the same secrets.
The cabin, which had felt like a sanctuary moments before, now felt like the epicenter of an earthquake, and the ground was splitting wide open beneath my feet.
I looked from the terrible words on the notepad to the raw, vindicated agony on Nash’s face.
He had lived with this truth, in his bones, for ten years, while the rest of the town praised the man who had betrayed him. Who had betrayed Hannah.
My blood didn’t just run cold. It froze.
And in that frozen silence, I knew what I had to do next. I had to face Ben.
I had to see the truth, or the lie, in his eyes for myself.